Military Reconsidering Putting Ground Troops in Iraq

We were promised no ground troops. Now that he has sent over 3000 of them, the Pentagon is “reconsidering” ground troops. According to the Washington Times,

President Obama’s top military advisers revealed Thursday that the administration is rethinking whether to deploy combat ground troops in the fight against the Islamic State, as signs emerged that the terrorist group may be setting aside its differences and is working with al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria — the Nusra Front — to attack U.S.-backed rebels in the region.

News of the possible detente between the once bitterly divided factions came Thursday as a new audio recording of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi calling on supporters to “erupt volcanoes of jihad” circulated through the Internet, casting doubt over Iraqi government claims that he was wounded in recent U.S.-led airstrikes.

While intelligence sources would not immediately confirm the authenticity of the recording, the development underscored the seriousness of Republican criticism that the Obama administration’s strategy for fighting the Islamic State has yet to produce measurable gains.

Secondly, if our opposition drove Al Nusra and the Islamic State to put aside their differences and fight together, that means our strategy has made the Islamic State stronger.

What if we had simply contained both groups and encouraged them to fight each other rather than driving them into one another’s arms?

At a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the strategy Thursday, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, suddenly told lawmakers the administration is considering whether U.S. ground forces may soon be needed to change the calculus of the war against the Islamic State.

Gen. Dempsey said a modest number of U.S. combat troops could be deployed alongside Iraqi forces preparing for certain complex missions — particularly the much-anticipated push to drive Islamic State fighters from the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and restore order to Iraq’s northern and western border with Syria.

The general made the comments after Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, the committee’s chairman, had opened the hearing by criticizing Mr. Obama’s pledge not to allow any U.S. “boots on the ground” in Iraq.

Republicans should have nothing to do with a new surge into Iraq. They will be swept out of office as fast as they were swept in.